


From Lyon, With Love.

by DirtyMartini (Zetaii)



Series: With Love, For You. [1]
Category: GOT7
Genre: 80s AU, M/M, i dont even kno how to tag this its the weirdest thing ive written ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7780897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetaii/pseuds/DirtyMartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the 80s and Mark was in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Lyon, With Love.

_"This is not a story with suspense. This story is not actually a story, really. It doesn’t have a proper beginning, has less of a proper middle and the ending, well, the ending doesn’t really end. This is a story about a moment, a moment which was written in letters, and these letters would define Mark’s perception of the eighties for the rest of his life, long after his kids romanticize the decade their father was homeless, their father fell in love with a stranger, and also kind of how their father had a racking debt of coffee and Lyon croissants and ended up in jail."_

_-_

 

_Lyon 1987._

I’ll be the kid if you can be the rain, baby. That was the first phrase Mark had scribbled on the wooden table which was already scratched enough as it was, names of strangers already stabbed in by keys, Mark wondered if the couple carved in were still together, _Antoine and Bijoux_ , it said, underlined by the date 1/3/86 - Mark had lived in France for little over three months at this point of our story, and although his French fluent enough to haggle prices at the market, still not involved enough to pronounce names to the standards of the especially picky French man.

If the couple were still together, it would have been their one year anniversary. Mark took a sip from his coffee cup and flinched from its temperature, realizing also that there was sugar in it, until a newspaper was smacked on his head.

“Marceline?” He looked up, middle-aged, crinkley eyed lady looking angry and dissatisfied but all with a sympathic flair that never intimidated Mark enough - moreover, _Café Pain au Chocolate_ was the only cafeteria left in Lyon where he didn’t have a striking _one-franc-per-cup-of-coffee_ debt stacked up yet.

The flooring was nice, tiles black and white with backless seats around the silky bar of the same colour, and one specific wall covered in Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Tina Turner vinyls, and a Wulitzer jukebox in the middle of it, for which Mark never had enough coins (or any money at all, for that matter) to spend on it.

“Yien!” Marceline, mother of two and _not married by choice_ , yelled. “Aretha Franklin made history becoming the first woman in the Rock n Roll hall of fame.”

She said it matter-of-factly, like Mark had to know and see it coming since he was in the womb. He had seen it coming ever since he met Marceline, though, newspaper on his table and a big pictures of Franklin on the cover.

“That’s nice,” Mark said, and he meant it, but he really wanted to read over all the scraps on the table and write in his notebook but Marceline remained unimpressed, smacking him for the second time that day with the rolled up newspaper.

“It’s a humongous deal,” Marceline declared. “For women all around the world. When I was your age I could only _dream_  of becoming a rockstar.”

Mark mistakenly told Marceline he majored in women’s studies in university once and forgot to mention he dropped out to become a fulltime waste of bohemian and carefree space. He appreciated the occasional conversation, but this time he kind of regretted ever telling her.

“Do you know who we had in our time?” Mark definitely knew who she had in her time, the fourties, because she never failed to mention it whenever any conversation about anything was happening at any time of the day.

“Frank Sinatra and racists,” She said. “Frank Sinatra and racists! What do I do with that?”

And Mark had to say, “I don’t know, become a waitress?”

“Exactly. So you better appreciate what you have in the 80s, kid, it’s a time like no other.”

And with that said she took his half-drunk coffee cup he did not finish on her tray and walked off to the next customer she’d later complain about. Mark sat back, legs crossed on the couch and looked out of the window. It was raining. If you’d be the rain, I’d be the kid. It wasn’t random, or baseless or pretentious. His mother never let him play whenever it rained in Taiwan, so the rain became something of distance he was enamoured with.

Mark had never been in the rain before, and frankly, he didn’t want to. Call it guilty conscience.

He wanted it to be sixties - peace and love, epitome of David Bowie and his all time Audrey Hepburn, simpler times, yet he was sentenced to sitting in a cafeteria broke of money and lacking a wallet, listening to _Sweet Little Woman_ because some guy in sweat stained Beatles shirt was proposing to his girlfriend.

It was then when the bells dingled in rhythm and the subject of Mark’s forthcoming desire walked intos his life when Mark didn’t have to chance to lock the doors.

You know that flair some people have which basically says they should be watched from a pretty distance in order not to break your expectations of them? You know that flair. That air which for Mark was comparable to the rain - it looked nice, worked for his poetry, everyone talked about it, but he didn't want to get wet.

The man was the embodiment of rain because of that. He was soaking wet and his umbrella, carefully placed in the bin next to the entrance, had a hole and pecks in it so Mark assumed ravens went out for the attack and frankly he could relate.

His skin was brown and mesmerizing like cinnamon, like the cinamon Mark always had in his coffee, so the man was both his rain and the cinnamon. He was staring at him, and Mark could not understand why oh why no one else was staring at him. He was a sight to behold, pretty soft looking (albeit, again, extremely wet) hair slightly covering his eyes, Mark wondered what it was like dry.

It was ludicrous, it was like his pen was spent and suddenly it rained ink and the man was the inspiration to his written canvas. It was a movie playing exclusively for him, it was a gallery of skin and coffee stains and broken umbrellas, it was the pencils the man was taking out and it was the notebook identical to Mark's (before Mark had manhandled it to fit his self-proclaimed bohemian, peace and love fulfilled idea of the sixties, man, Mark loved the sixties) that impressed him so much.

The boy walked across the loud cafeteria, _Girls Just Wanna Have Fun_ , despite being five years old already, booming loud from the jukebox chosen by a group of girls in spandex and red hair.

The stranger still managed to trap his attention in while every other male had their eyes set on the females, like nature had wanted it like that, dancing and prancing as if it was some type of ritual naked of any cover up screens.

It was pure, unaldurated interest, and Mark’s was set on the man sat in the corner.

The boy began drawing, lines that didn't make any sense yet, lines Mark could sympathize with, but Mark recognized the prestige of a person who knew what he was doing, and the rain was over and the sun quickly came out like someone sped up the tape from the walkman and suddenly Mark was a free man to rome the streets of Lyon again.

No house no plan and no money,

it was his definition of the eighties.

 

-

 

This is not a story with suspense. This story is not actually a story, really. It doesn’t have a proper beginning, has less of a proper middle and the ending, well, the ending doesn’t really end. This is a story about a moment, a moment which was written in letters, and these letters would define Mark’s perception of the eighties for the rest of his life, long after his kids romanticize the decade their father was homeless, their father fell in love with a stranger, and also kind of how their father had a racking debt of coffee and Lyon croissants.

Spoiler alert, though, because by the end of this moment and when the final letter is placed on the final page and Mark might or might not forget to put a dot on it, Mark is still homeless, and Mark is still in love with a stranger, and the stranger is still a stranger, and Mark still doesn’t like sugar with his coffee, and Marceline still tells him to get his head out of the sixties and, well, Mark still kinds of wants to be in the sixties.

The moment was short-lived, but Mark felt like the quicksand stood still.

"A whole bunch of them have been coming in boats lately, you know," Marceline put the plastic cup of coffee on the table because apparently Mark was not worth the ceramics. "From Vietnam, of course, America doesn’t want them."

Marceline never sat down whenever she spoke to Mark, so it automatically gave her a somewhat intimidating vibe of superiority and like she was going to smash the metal plate in his face if he dared to say anything she didn’t like. Mark was very good at saying things she didn’t like, but luckily and shockingly he only got strands of hair playfully pulled from time to time.

"You know, not all Asians in Europe are Vietnamese." He was an example. Born in the United States but originally from Taiwan, Marceline was always shocked he’d want to go to Lyon of all places to basically become a homeless young man.

"You don’t understand," Marceline said. "The _Americans_ , they’re scheming something by giving your people permits."

It all sounded like a load of yada-da to Mark, not that he cared. He had experienced racism as a teenager and he sure was aware that his family had lived it much harsher than he has, as Marceline explained to him - "Our people, your people and my people were brought there just because our hands are cheaper than the white mans, kid."

Mark escaped all of that, though, and Marceline, African-American, had too, somehow, so they bonded over their differences and Mark found it extremely funny that despite being categorized as ’other’, Marceline still managed to insult him (albeit accidentally) every other day.

"So you like the boy?" Marceline got to the point, and Mark put his cup down, and then he put his purple sweater over his hands and stared lovesickingly at the ceiling covered by neon lights which were on despite the time of day.

"I _love_ him."

Which was exactly when an extra-angry customer which a huge scrunchie hanging high on her head and banger earrings clearly taken right out of a Madonna pictorial raised her hand, Marceline muttered some curse words and excused herself to walk to them, the exact moment when The Bangles hottest hit, _Walk Like an Egyptian_ , started playing, and Mark’s mood was automatically lifted, imagining the stranger and him possibly dancing in a disco together. Or perhaps he’d have a motorbike and take Mark out on a stroll to whatever country and city the gas would allow them to escape to. Perhaps, and Mark’s coffee was getting cold at the thought, he’d even ask Mark to sit down for him in the busiest street of Lyon and he’d paint him in different colours from everyone else because he was just that special to him.

Mark had not heard him speak, but he looked like a guy with a soft voice.

And so, at four p.m sharp, the bells dangled together again and a Blondie look-a-like walked in and announced loudly that McDonalds was soon celebrating it’s ten year anniversary in France, so everyone who came between then and an hour from then would be getting free McNuggets - behind the man in a wig and a fake accent stood the stranger man, confused and amused and most of all bewildered, hoping to walk through.

Gee, Mark thought, about both the free food and the stranger looking so fresh and beautiful once again.

After Marceline hastily chased the man away shouting about capitalism, the stranger looked for the spot he sat in the day before, occupied by a bunch of guys with their pink sweaters tied around their necks and toussled back hair, and he looked perfectly distressed.

Mark imagined himself asking him to sit with him. He didn’t.

So the stranger, instead, sat right in front of him and Mark did not know what overcame him by the mere sight of the strangers upper head. It was dry this time and he looked as good as ever and he looked mildly confused when the waitress asked him what he wanted to order apparently forgetting you were supposed to spend money in the establishment.

Mark could sympathize, really.

After a couple of minutes of Mark listening in on them, he quickly realized the stranger did not speak French. Or at least not good enough French to ask Marceline if he could have sugar in his coffee. Marceline looked especially annoyed and it was all teathrics, because she winked at Mark and quickly scurried over to the bar with the excuse of having more clients to attend.The stranger sighed, exasperated, and muttered something in a language Mark could not understand.

"Hey," -Hey, what was that? the man leaned over the couch and crossed his arms to lean his head on and was looking directly at Mark, still, Mark pointed at himself, looked around him and with Billie Jean playing on the jukebox, the stranger nodded. "Are you Korean?"

Mark was not Korean. Mark barely spoke Mandarin and much less Taiwanese as it was, so he shook his head comically, finger still pointing at himself, and the man giggled, broken French slipping out again.

"Sorry," He said. "Just - My French isn’t very good. Do you know where the nearest station is?"

Grammatical errors that could fill a book, but Mark let it slip and although he definitely knew where the nearest station was, he shook his head again, and the man cocked his head to the right and looked at him for a couple of seconds - probably wondering if Mark was mute or something.

"Tete d’or," The stranger wiggled his arms around imitating a bird and Mark assumed he was asking if there were a lot of them at that park.

"Uh, yeah," Mark said. "Lot’s of them, I think."

They were words harder to pronounce than holding ones breath in but the stranger’s smile gave Mark five more reasons to explain the doctors why he was having a heartstroke, beating and pumping and thumping so fast and hard the stranger could probably hear it over Michael Jackson’s boisterious and soulful voice.

The stranger opened his mouth to say something, but closed it quickly, thanked him and sat back down. Not too fast, though, because Mark yearned for a couple of more seconds and his spontaneousness took over and then he was leaning over the couch, tapping the strangers shoulder and holding out the packets of sugar he didn’t use.

The stranger analyzed it for a minute and finally after registering it, put his pen down from the canvas which now had different shades of pink and odd flowers he had never seen on it and smiled widely.

"Merci beacoup!" He beamed.

On the corner of the canvas Mark read two names, written with the same shade of pink the stranger with a name was painting with, it said, and Mark read,

_"From Park Jinyoung to Im Jaebum, from Lyon, with love."_

When Mark left his coffee stand cold and ran away flustered as he could get, he tripped over a couple of girls at the entrance, and he didn’t look back but he could definitely hear Marceline laugh and he could definitely hear glass break in front of him and he tried not to, but the unmistakable sweetness of Jinyoung’s, Park Jinyoung’s voice giggled in an echo at the moment in Mark’s head, and then he was gone.

Was that the moment, or was that one moment?

It was a moment.

 

-

 

"Boy," Marceline poked his elbow. "Boy, boy what are yo- _boy!_ " She wacked him with the menu card after Mark pathetically dipped his fingers in the nutella on the tray meant for another table. Mark was sat at the bar, he was sat there for thirty minutes, and frankly it was pissing Marceline off for how long he was actually sitting there and now the mini-bowl had fingerprints in them and oh my god, Marceline was going to get yelled at for this.

She held in her breath, counted till ten and told him she’ll play Guns and Roses if he’d tell her what was wrong.

Mark, ex-women’s studies major and a fan of all things dramatic and exaggerated, like Japanese samurai stageplays and bad  _West SIde Story_ highschool remakes and a big fan of the movie _A Touch of Zen_ , sighed, nose upwards facing the roof, inhaled, exhaled, and looked Marceline dead in the eyes.

 "He has a man."

Marceline shrieked, smoothing out the Nutella with the knife in her hand. Then her expression turned to a frown and she raised an eyebrow and smashed the mini-bowl on the tray, vibrations running through the metal and Mark could feel it. That or it was the collective shriek of various females and homosexuals when Careless Whisperer came on. 

"Don’t joke around, kid," She shoved the tray towards him. "Now make yourself useful and bring this to the table over there in the corner."

So he did.

While walking towards that table over there in the corner he asked himself why he was walking there and why he was basically working for free, but as most things in Mark’s spontaneous life, he did not meditate too much over the question, and put the coffee down and the cute Nutella mini-bowls next to the toast. 

Which was when it happened. 

It was a turning point. A crack in the glass from a fall of lead. It was rock in the windows. It was a backstage planning and Mark could only ever see and judge the final product. 

A series of black Harley motorbikes roamed hard and the engines were a song on their own on the streets of Lyon that was not used to leather jackets and was more used to the romantic picture of vibrant colours. Mark stood there, tray in hand and the girls did not complain because the entire cafetaria was visibly shaken by the sound and the visuals of the biker gang, parking outside of _Pain au Chocolate_ which was by all means in the very centre of the city. 

The bikers managed to park anyway, and with cut-up demin jackets with patches worn over leather, ripped jeans and boots on their feet, the group of four thumped with their heels towards the door, and from what seemed one second to the next, they were sat at the bar.

It was by far the funniest thing Mark had ever seen, because despite being homeless for three months now, he had never seen a biker gang in person and for some reason they did not yell at him or smoke or reek of alcohol.

Rather, they sat pretty meekly by the bar, and Marceline looked, as per usual, unimpressed.

"What are you bad boys doing out at daytime?" She asked, and just like that, the craze was over and everyone returned to their previous conversations, perhaps a little more quiet just in case they could hear something to gossip about, Mark swore even the jukebox volume went down.

But it seems like she was just waiting for a moment to strike, because she hit one red-head with the menu across the cheek and he squirmed audiably.

"What was that for?!" He exclaimed, trying to reach the menu she was holding but Marceline wouldn’t budge.

"How dare you show your mug here after all this time?" The boys tensed up their shoulders and all of them were looking down on their twiddling thumbs. "And how dare you show up dressed like that again? What if the boss comes?"

"I’m sorry mamma," The red-head said while Mark put the tray down on the bar and looked at the scene unfold. "We just didn’t want to go to jail."

"Well you wouldn’t have to have worried about that if you didn’t get into a fight in the first place."

"They were mocking your job!" Another boy said. Marceline sighed, and only then seemed to realize Mark was listening in on their conversation. She nodded at him. 

"These good-for-nothings are just like you, Yien."

Frankly, Mark didn’t think that he and the hooligans had a whole lot of hobbies in common, but if Marceline said so he guessed he’d go with it.

The boys, funnily enough all asian and Mark had to wonder if Marceline just cracked a bad joke in a bad moment, analyzed him from tip-to-toe and chose to ignore him, except for one who was shorter than the rest of them and seemed a little older.

"Anyways, Marceline. We’ve returned as proper citizens, you know?" He said, and Mark took the liberty of looking stupid and bending sideways to see the name on the back of his jacket ’Jackson’ it said, the other two were ’BamBam’, ’Youngjae’ and the red-head who received the generous slap and was now sporting a red cheek was ’Yugyeom’, all their jackets covered with patches of Rhododendron .

Mark, twenty one and maybe a lot dumber than he used to be, did not see the connection yet.

Marceline sighed, staring somewhat lovingly at the older guy and re-did her ponytail, asking them where they had been all this time and if their newfound broken French is because of the time they spent hiding out from the law.

"We were in West Germany," Jackson said. "And then in Amsterdam for a little while before returning."

"What made you come back?" Marceline asked, and he was not sure if she noticed or not but Mark had creeped behind the bar and was washing plates just to listen in on their conversation.

"We realized," BamBam said. "That people like us wouldn’t last very long."

Mark couldn’t help but giggle at the terrible theatrics of the fellow reciting his favourite movies, or something, like this were  _The Outsiders._

"I see you laughing," Jackson said, facing Mark intently. "Who are you?"

"A man in love." Mark declared dramatically, not lifting his gaze from the plate he was washing, deciding to play with the man a little even though he should probably not mess with a group of runaways. Being so bossed out by Marceline, though, they seemed a lot less intimidating.

Jackson hummed, and his attention went back to Marceline. "We promise, mom."

And with that, they each got a cup of chocolate milk and coffee, they paid for it and after fourty minutes, the former bad boys turned into another colour of the picture of Lyon, they became somewhat infamous on the street for their attire in the three days they kept coming, and Mark quickly lost interest in them even though Jackson would strike up a conversation with him from time to time, it never got personal, he never asked him where he came from or what he was doing there, it was more like he was pointing out mundane things like when Marceline let Mark choose a song when they were closing up and he chose Last Dance by Donna Summer.

"You seem like more of an Aerosmith kind of guy."

"Well, right now I’m feeling Donna Summer, I guess."

Jackson smirked, so did Mark, and as became a habit in these three days, they sat in silence for the rest of the evening, occupying a table till closing hours, Jackson reading a book ( _The Colour Purple_ by Alice Walker) and Mark pondering over where the love of his life had gone, suddenly sad that he hadn’t seem him after their interaction, a splutter of colour in the sudden monochrome of leather that had befallen Lyon.

 Don’t expect it?

Expect it.

 

-

 

Despite what one might think, becoming homeless is not that easy. Really, Mark made a big effort to not have a dime on his name or a bed to sleep in every night. Becoming homeless is not easy.

Homemade meals was a priviledge he indulged in when he had a roof on top of his head and clean sheets to lie on. He remembers it vividly, his mother had made chicken she’d season a little too strongly for his fathers liking, and rice which was never enough for a family of seven kids around the dinner table. Naturally, one was bound to fall out of the boat, and in this case it was Mark. His family couldn’t swim, funnily enough.

No, Mark could just close his eyes and he was taken back to the cramped up apartment in the China town of Los Angeles where the bathtub was in the kitchen and there were four rooms for the seven kids, youngest doomed to even share the same bed, and for some reason a Teresa Ting vynil was always playing, even when their mother worked at the garment factory till late and they could cramp up with their father on the bigger bed. The music only went off when all the kids were asleep.

That same night with the chicken that was too seasoned for some and the rice which was never enough for anyone, their parents were talking to one of their brothers about college, his little brother was deadset to help the family out and work straight after highschool, but following the suit of his older sisters and Mark himself, every kid coming out of their house was going to be successful somehow.

That was the last night he slept in his own bed, because between his college textbooks sat a one way ticket to France he and his bestfriend at the time bought together - they were going to escape America and start a new life in Europe.

Mark lost his bestfriend at the bus station when they arrived in Lyon. No, he didn’t die, Mark was buying his ticket, and when he turned around he wasn’t there anymore, and Mark profoundly wished portable phone cabins were a thing, wouldn’t that be a million dollar invention? Mark kind of regretted colouring out of the lines with his stroke of genius, but there was no way back and even while working cuts in his hands from the garment factory he’d work at sometimes, he still had to preserve his money well before settling.

That was three months ago. Everything else is some yada-da that’s too boring to talk about and really, this is not a story of pity or coherence and it doesn’t have a lesson to learn. Mark lived by the day and luckily for him, Marceline treated him well. He slept on park benches and tricked French men into doing free work by loading big TVs into trucks and he’d run away and sell them on the weekly market. Other times he’d flirt his way into someones bed whenever it got too cold to withstand and Mark was not a bad guy, so he never stole anyone’s money.

Mark got the freedom he secretly yearned for growing up as a poor little minority in the United States of the 70s, but there was a too much of everything,

Mark just never had enough of anything to learn that lesson yet.

Was it too much?

It wasn’t.

 

-

Led lamps on top closed disco roofs with massive posters of dragqueens in skimpy dresses and legs tangled underneath a table at eleven p.m - even Lyon was a lazy college kid on Mondays.

Marceline was cleaning tables, and for the first time in the four nights they’d spent there, Jackson and Mark, together, somehow, she let them relax rather than clean up and help her out, their legs interwined with excuse of the small space between each couch but the reality being simple attraction, everything was explicit and nothing was difficult to understand.

“Why are you two still here?” She asked, and Mark shrugged, waiting for Jackson’s reply.

He never gave it, instead Jackson seemed interested in the table and rubbed his finger over the names crossed on the wood, looked at it for a while, and asked said it had been their anniversary last week if the couple, Antoine and Bijoux, were still together.

Mark hummed, not bothering to say he already knew that.

“How much?” Jackson finally asked.

“I’m not a hooker." Mark put his cup on the table.

Jackson shook his head, crossing his arms. "That's not what I meant - I mean, how much longer till we stop pretending we're not attracted to one another?"

"You're a bad liar." 

"Didn't want to offend ya," Jackson said. "You have to make your money in some way."

"Prostitution is a job like any other -" God, Jackson was just begging to be played with looking like that. Mark forced himself out of strenght, yawning. "Well, time for bed, I guess."

But Jackson had him between his legs again, harder this time, gaze on him fearlessly and with a directness Mark was ironically not used to in his spontaneous life.

The owls were hooting and a red car passed by, its engines filling up the silence for a few bare seconds, Marceline was finishing up in the kitchen humming to a Nina Simone song, and the lights were all dim apart from the one closest to them, including in the entire street except for the lone club led lights, shit, even Jackson and Mark wanted to feel like lazy college kid on Monday nights.

"Stay with me." Jackson said.

So he did.

 

-

It was a crackers home they did not pay for, with the faucet leaking drops of water at all times which was at first annoying, but then became almost harmonious in the dark apartment of which the lights barely worked unless you first press the on in the kitchen, then the one near the door, the one next to the couch and finally the one under the house plant.

The refrigerator buzzed constantly, and there was a crack in the flooring. Mark could see the ants stomp in formation from the counter down to the floor carrying crumbs of breads. The important thing was that Jackson looked good under the blue shade of the moonlight and that they all felt part of a painting except for the fire of his cigarette - it felt like both a rotation, like a meant-to-do and like they were working on instincts. It was Jackson leaning over the small table by the kitchen window to blow the smoke in Mark’s face even though Mark told him he couldn’t stand the taste or smell of nicotine.

It was that same mouth he kissed him with afterwards, and just like sugar Mark decided he still did not like the taste of it.

And he definitely tasted it, on Jackson’s tongue and his own teeth. It was gross and disgusting, it was arousing and Mark had the hormones of a little schoolboy discovering what porn was and his breath sped up and he could feel the warmth on his cheeks and a sting in his lower region that hurt so nicely.

 Jackson leaned back, eyed him good and asked him, the first and only question Jackson had ever asked him, if he thought of moving out of France anytime soon.

The question did not click in his mind, and although Jackson was in love with him the same way Mark was in love with Jinyoung, stupidity overcame him and Jackson wanted to take Mark with him to wherever it was his motorbike would take him next. He did not expect an answer, but still felt midly dissapointed when Mark stood up to straddle him in his seat instead. The dissapointment took three seconds to sink in, and then Mark had taken a long huff of his cigarette and put it out on the table, leaving an ugly, dark mark on it.

“I want you to fuck me.” 

He said with a rasp which Jackson was not sure because of the cigarette or his arousal, but Mark was going on autpilot and his need was speaking for him over his foggy mind which was similar to the weather they were fucking in, or perhaps he was just losing control of himself since a very long time ago, so he didn’t think clear at all, ever.

That was not important right now. Mark was in the moment and in that moment he was grinding into a man he knew nothing about and it felt good. It felt good. As long as it felt good, nothing else mattered, so he continued, and Jackson shoved his hands up his shirt and even though Mark was a man and did not have tits, Jackson groped him anyway.

“You know I love women,” Jackson mouthed against his lips, Mark’s breath hot on his skin. “But you make me wanna do real bad things to you.”

And Mark wanted him to do all of them, so he grabbed Jackson’s hair and pulled it back, he shut him up, he kissed him hard, Jackson’s fingers were trailing painfully light down his spine, like feathers, and then he knocked his head back, hitting the window, and let Mark kiss his neck, his collarbones, take his jacket off and then back to his mouth.

It took him fourty seconds and a lot of banging heads against the walls till Jackson could throw the older boy on the bed and  get between his legs immediately after - but Mark wouldn’t have any of that, and before Jackson had the chance to realize, Mark flipped them over and was mouthing over his clothed crotch, hardening against his lips and Mark remembered when he lost his virginity in an afterschool clubroom while the sun was setting down and there was chewing-gum under the tables.

The blue light of the moon was shining on Mark’s complexion, when he snapped his boxers against his skin and Jackson moaned, Mark took him in his mouth, and stayed there, half-lying down with his dick in mouth, for a little while.

“You’re so weird,” Jackson declared. “What are you doing?”

“Guess I never had a pacifier to sleep with.” Jackson was not sure if it was a joke or if Mark’s mind really worked that way - either way he had no time to be scared, confused, concerned or aroused before Mark woke up from his trance and was going down on him like a dream.

Minutes afterwards, Mark had his legs spread for the other man, and Jackson made sure to fuck him good into the matress, pining Mark’s wrists down whenever he covered himself up with a pillow, and letting himself be led when Mark took Jackson’s hand and put it around his neck.

Jackson knew what he wanted, and he was so far gone inside Mark and fucked out and aroused, he took a grip on his throat, and not too long after that, the both came in bliss and Jackson kissed him once more, for the last time, and Mark lazily accepted it, muttering something about Lyon and Los Angeles and the garment factory he used to help out in. Switching between English and Mandarin, Jackson still understood him.

It was then when Mark knew he had to get out of there as soon as possible - his back hurt and he wanted nothing more but to fall asleep in a castle of blankets and pillows and Jackson, but every fiber of his being told him to run. So he did, telling Jackson he was going to take a shower, took Jackson’s shirt and his own jeans, and with the shower water running for a few minutes before turning it off, Mark was gone.

That was the last time Mark had spoken to Jackson.

Is it the grand finale?

It’s time for the grand finale.

 

-

 

 

Everything’s always a lot less dramatic than what we make it out to be. Despite the situation fit for an angsty pop song that’d get poor review with the critics, Mark was zooming out of nothing with a scalping hot coffee cup between his fingers, he hadn’t slept a damn wink, but the music kept playing like a bad joke or a visual pun and Mark briefly wondered if the eighties was just a horribly dream.

_“It’s already 1987, Patricia, it is okay for men to wear make-up!”_

_“I heard they’re creating phones that can fit in your pocket.”_

_“You know, the seventies was the time. Earth Wind and Fire, Jackson 5 and Diana Ross, disco music nowadays just seems too commercial you know?”_

Passenger’s latest greatest hit _I Want to Know What Love i_ s started playing, and the early evening of a six p.m Lyon was swaying to the lyrics, even Mark changed and appreciated pop music from time to time. He was looking out of the window, rubbing the edge of his cup and wondering if he should really leave the city he hadn’t had the time to fall in love with, but perhaps had a little crush on, regardless.

The eighties was the time Mark told his secrets to and thankfully the eighties was a loyal man so he’d never spill his moments to anyone. The eighties, man, Mark really hated the eighties. It was a transitional decade, and Mark was devastated wondering if there will ever be a time as amazing as the sixties back when he wasn’t even born. Hm, there was something going on there, but Mark was good at starting a thought but never good at finishing it. 

The cinema in front of the cafeteria was promoting _Dirty Dancing_ , a movie Mark really wanted to see when it came out, and next to it annoucing that _Goodmorning, Vietnam_ had just premiered. Mark felt offended for some reason.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

Mark’s breath was taken away when he lifted his eyes from the view outside to the gobsmackingly gorgeous sight in front of him - it was Jinyoung, it was Park Jinyoung and it was the stranger Mark had fallen in love with. It was the embodiment of the rain and the sixties and everything Mark loved. Jinyoung smiled at him, looking a little bit awkward, eyes shifted from the empty seat in front of Mark and another one across the cafeteria.

Mark’s words couldn’t hurry out any faster if he tried.

“Uh - do you - do you want to sit,” He held Jinyoung’s wrist before he could leave. “Do you want to sit with me?”

Jinyoung smiled at him, all eye-crinkles and clutching his canvas a little tigther thinking Mark did not see it, so he nodded, put his canvas on the space next to him and twiddled with the sugar packs Mark left on the table.

“You don’t like sugar?” He asked.

“Hate it.”

And for some reason, the both of them got in a fit of laughing - Jinyoung laughed because Mark did, and Mark laughed and giggled even harder because of Jinyoung. But then Jinyoung’s eyes wandered over to the leather jacket on Mark’s shoulders, and he looked uncomfortable.

Mark did not notice.

“Well well,” Marceline gave them an all-knowing grin and took Jinyoung’s orders, twirling unecessarily on her way back to the kitchen, and muttering a loud “It’s your chance, kid.” when she left.

“She seems nice.” Jinyoung pointed out.

And she was. Mark told him how nice she was, without push or hurry, as if he and Jinyoung had been friends forever and they were both normal citizens of the city of Lyon, all the while they drank their cups of coffee after blowing it off, until _I Wanna Know What Love_ Is ended, and _Every Breath You Take_ came on.

Which was when Mark finished his monologue feeling bashful under Jinyoung’s eyes, so he pointed at the canvas and asked him what it was.

“Oh this,” Jinyoung placed it so he could see the product, and surely, it was the same one dedicated to one ‘Im Jaebum’, except, wait, something wasn’t right. “Is for someone. Had to finish it today. Wanted to capture the essence of this place.”

No, no, something was completely wrong. The cafeteria looked good and the bycicles on point, greens by the window with detail and even the people inside the cafeteria looked awfully realistic, but the flowers, the flowers were all wrong.

“Did you change the tulips?” Mark laughed awkwardly, recognizing the flower from somewhere, but not actually sure from where.

Jinyoung did not answer his question.

“You’re cute.” He said instead.

Yet Mark was conflicted, dread in the pit of his stomach and butterflies poking his insides to get out at his words - it was like the colours were more vibrant when Jinyoung was around, like the plants and flowers had a fresher aroma, like the coffee tasted better and the music sounded better, it was stupid and Mark did not know why he felt that way about someone he did not know.

He said that out loud, not on purpose mind you, but out loud nonetheless.

Jinyoung looked shocked for just a second, and then he hid his face behind his cup taking a final sip.

Before Mark could open his mouth to defend himself, loud gunshots were heard and everyone ducked down almost by command, Mark and Jinyoung bumped heads under their table, looking at each other with questionmarks for eyes, and almost wondering if they had all imagined it until a third, fourth and fifth bang went off.

“Fuck, we gotta get out of here,” Mark declared, taking Jinyoung’s hand without giving him a chance the speak. “Let’s escape from the backdoor.”

“Wait-” Jinyoung held his hand to stop. “What about all these people?”

Mark did not think about anyone but himself and Jinyoung and was definitely getting Marceline out  of there if he could as well. Jinyoung looked at him with big eyes, and it hurt Mark’s heart but not nearly as much as when loud engines were heard, shouts and insults and panic arousing outside.

“We can’t.” Mark said.

Jinyoung refused to let him get dragged away, sitting stubbornly under the table. Mark sighed desperately, considering forcing him out of there anyway, but the gunshots weren’t inside the cafeteria yet, so maybe they were safe there. Maybe.

That’s where his moment was going to end. If he was going to die then so let him die in the cafeteria he cherished together with the stranger he fell in love with, Mark thought, and one thought locked into another and everything made sense apart from one missing puzzle piece in the shape of a revolver.

The patches on Jackson’s and the gangs leather jackets and the flowers on Jinyoung’s painting were the same, red and only found in south-east asia, it took Mark that long too realize. He looked at Jinyoung shakingly, awfully calm himself, and the questions poured out quicker than he could process. Who was Jaebum and was there a relation between Jinyoung and the gang? Was it them loading out guns outside?

They were, and he found out when Yugyeom got almost thrown into the cafeteria by a french man in a suit. To be fair, Yugyeom looked eager to get out of there when everyone screamed and Mark did not dare to look at Marceline to see the hurt on her face.

And comically so, two motorbikes crashed into the glass wall, leaving no one harmed but themselves, and Jackson and Youngjae jumped on the bar as soon as they got off and pointed their guns around the cafeteria.

“Alright guys, I don’t think anybody wants to die while _Wham!_ is playing, so stay sweet.”

“I can’t _stand_ his voice Jackson.” Youngjae moaned and, well, tried to shoot the jukebox but missed and _Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go_ was still playing during a shoot-out. Mark wanted to scream, really, and kind of missed the cramped up kitchen-and-shower back in the States. Oh well.

The French man cursed and raised but his hands, until a third motorbike managed to squeeze itself inside. More screeches and manly high-pitched screaming.

The third man got off his bike, and Mark’s mouth stood open when he saw the man’s face - all black hair silky skin and two moles on top of his eyes.

“Jaebum!” Jinyoung beamed next to him, jumping up and knocking his head in the process. “Oh my god, baby!”

“Get on, babe.” Jaebum winked at him, kissing him hard and Jinyoung shoved the canvas in his hands.

“We should do that sometime again.” He winked at Mark, and although Jaebum opened his mouth like he was going to say something, police sirens in the distance cut them off, and then all of them but Jackson were gone, riding off and leaving broken glass and a dead body behind.

Drenching his boots with blood, Jackson noticed him under the table after Jinyoung’s little show, and he walked over to him, urging the others to leave before him. He crouched down, fisting Mark’s, or more like his own, shirt in his hands.

Mark should have been trembling and scared. He wasn’t.

“It looks good on you.” Jackson said, patting Mark’s cheek in a way he wasn’t sure if it was affectionate or ironic.

“See ya, babe! - and if they ask, you haven’t seen our faces, alright?”

Which was when he realized the situation he was in, and he had to bolt as quick as humanely possible and perhaps write in his diary that oh my gosh, the love of his life had finally, _finally!_ spoken to him and maybe help out Marceline with the dead body and the broken glass the next day.

“Get out!” Marceline yelled at him, and he did, telling her he’d be there tomorrow for sure, and to be careful.

Unfortunately Mark only got so far, and before he could run the block towards the park, two police men had already knocked him against the wall, talking into walkey-talkies that they found the “tall, dark-haired asian suspect of assault, robbery and fraud.” 

“I don’t know them!” Mark yelled, kicking around but it only helped to get himself even more wrecked into a tigther position until he was cuffed. “C'mon, I’m a _victim_ , you can’t do this to an innocent civilan!”

“They’re always the victims, aren’t they?”

 

-

 

And that’s how this moment ended. At the end, at the police station there was a couple called Antoine and Bijoux and it was their one year anniversary not to long before that. Mark congratulated them, and that night it was raining but it was okay because Mark had been put on probation, anyway. Nobody ever found out why the shoot-out happened or if it was planned or along, but then again, Mark never did his best to investigate.

At the end of this moment, Jinyoung was still a stranger, and Mark still homeless, and he still had a coffee debt with Marceline, and, well, beyond all of this, Jackson didn’t really make the cut in his moment, and six months from now Mark was going to stumble upon a pretty girl named Madelaine, and Madelaine was going to stumble upon Mark, and maybe they’d start dating, and maybe they’d have kids, and maybe they’d move to America.

That, or perhaps Jinyoung would realize he and Mark were meant to be from the start, and Jinyoung would find him and they’d have a wonderful life together while building a time machine to go back to the sixties where it rained every night and Mark would be the happiest man on the planet.

Was that realistic?

No, that wasn’t realistic.

* * *

 

 

**1\. Ive never written anything like this**

**2\. Do I like it???????????? I dont know**

**3\. What the fuck**

**4\. (In case you made it till the end) Thank u for reading I love yall**

**5\. I got too involved with this highkey**

**7\. tell me what yall think**

 

 


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